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After building seven first-generation satellites, Thales Alenia Space is now carrying on a partnership formed over 25 years ago with Eumetsat (European Meteorological Satellite organization) and the European Space Agency (ESA), through the family of Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites.

MSG satellites will carry on the mission performed by Meteosat, but with the higher performance expected by meteorologists today. The MSG satellites offer ten times the performance provided by first-generation Meteosat satellites: it features 12 channels to provide detailed access to all atmospheric movements, an image acquisition rate of 1 every 15 minutes (twice that of the first-generation), and 1-kilometer resolution in the visible bandwidth. MSG satellites also offer four times the performance of the American GOES meteorological satellites.

Mission
Meteosat Second Generation satellites are designed for two primary missions:

• Imaging: 1 image every 15 minutes via 12 channels (8 infrared). Information supplied is multispectral image data for the cloud system and the earth's surface (IR, visible and water vapor). It can also analyze atmospheric air masses using channels that absorb ozone, water vapor and carbon dioxide.
• Communications mission, including the transmission of raw data to the ground station, receiving processed data from the station, and distribution of information to the user.

Role of Thales Alenia Space
Thales Alenia Space is lead contractor in the MSG program, heading a European team including over 50 subcontractors. Drawing on its long experience, Thales Alenia Space maintains perfect control over technical specifications, costs and lead-times, as jointly defined by ESA and Eumetsat back in 1995.
Thales Alenia Space's is MSG prime contractor, with responsibility for system engineering, assembly, integration and testing, communication package, along with production of three major subassemblies: the Onboard software (command-control chain), the IQGSE (Image Quality Ground Support Equipment), and the Radiometer scanning drive unit. Thales Alenia Space Belgium and Spanish subsidiary are also involved in the programme with providing key equipment.
In addition, Thales Alenia Space has supplied and installed 47 second-generation Meteosat receiving stations in 45 African countries. This contract is part of the PUMA project (set up in 1996 by Eumetsat), which paves the way for the use of MSG data in Africa.

Deeper in the program
In addition to the SEVIRI radiometer and a new telecommunications payload for the transfer of data to users, the MSG satellites will be carrying for the first time an instrument for measuring the radiative budget of the Earth, known as GERB (Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget), developed by ESA for climatic research. Another first onboard a European geostationary satellite will be the "Search and Rescue" repeater which is to carry out a humanitarian mission by relaying distress signals transmitted by any moving objects (aircraft, boat, etc.) located in the coverage area (Europe, Africa, Atlantic Ocean).
With a large-sized platform (but still stabilized by rotation at 100 r.p.m.) to host all the MSG subsystems and with a 2 tons launch mass, Meteosat Second Generation is placed in geostationary orbit at 0° longitude and supply round-the-clock images of the Earth. It is designed for a lifetime of seven years.

Planning
MSG-1 and MSG-2 are already in orbit, while MSG-3 is scheduled to be launched in 2011 and MSG-4 in 2013.